Sushil Kumar loses to Japan's Tatsuhiro Yonemitsu in the final at London Olympics

NEW DELHI: Indian grappler Sushil Kumar lost to Japan's Tatsuhiro Yonemitsu in the gold medal bout in men's 66kg freestyle wrestling and won the silver.

Earlier, Kumar had stormed into the finals of 66kg freestyle wrestling at London Olympics, keeping India's hope for a historic gold alive.

Sushil thrashed Akzhurek Tanatarov of Kazakhastan 9-6 in the semifinals to become first India wrestler to reach the final of Olympic.

After taking 3-0 lead in the first round, Sushil was down by his opponent in the second round. However, the Indian wrestler fought back to score 6 points in the final round, finishing with the score of 9-6 at London's Riverbank Arena.

Sushil had earlier defeated Ikhtiyor Navruzov of Uzbekistan in his quarterfinal bout.

Sushil Kumar won his opening bout against Ramazan Sahin of Turkey, who had won the gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Sushil, who won the bout 3-1, is now through to the quarterfinals in which he will meet Ikhtiyor Navruzov of Uzbekistan.